Fairfield County, Ohio

Fairfield County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Lancaster
Year Organized: 1800
Square Miles: 506

Court House:

210 E. Main Street
County Courthouse
Lancaster, OH 43130-3879

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Residents named the county after the area's "fair fields."

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History

On December 9, 1800, the government of the Northwest Territory authorized the creation of Fairfield County. Residents named the county after the area's "fair fields." Zane's Trace passed through the county. The population grew as people moved westward into the Northwest Territory.

Fairfield County is located in east central Ohio. It is predominantly rural, with less than two percent of the county's 505 square miles consisting of urban areas. The county seat is Lancaster. With a population of 35,335 people, Lancaster was the county's largest community in 2000. The next largest urban area, Pickerington, had 9,737 residents in that same year. Fairfield County experienced a significant increase in population -- roughly 18.6 percent -- between 1990 and 2000. The total population of the county in 2000 was 122,759 people. Many of these new people were residents of Columbus or other parts of central Ohio. The county averages 243 people per square mile.

The largest employers in Fairfield County are sales establishments, with health care, communications, and other service industries a distant second. Government and manufacturing positions finish third and fourth respectively. Farming is a distant fifth. During the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, the county became a major producer of glass products. Anchor-Hocking Glass Company originated in Fairfield County. In 1999, the per capita income in the county was approximately 26,700 dollars, with almost seven percent of the people living in poverty.

Most voters in Fairfield County claim to be independents.

Among Fairfield County's more prominent residents was William Tecumseh Sherman, a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. His brother, John Sherman, was a United States senator and author of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. General Sherman's former home in Lancaster is now a museum. Ohio Governor William Medill was from Fairfield County. Tarlton Indian Mound, the only known cross-shaped earthworks, is in this county.

Sources

Fairfield County, Ohio History Central, July 23, 2008,

http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1926&nm=Fairfield-County

Neighboring Counties:

Licking County (north)
Perry County (east)
Hocking County (south)
Pickaway County (southwest)
Franklin County (northwest)

Cities and Towns:

- Amanda	village	Incorporated Area
- Baltimore	village	Incorporated Area
- Berne	township
- Bloom	township
- Bremen	village	Incorporated Area
- Canal Winchester	village	Incorporated Area
- Carroll	village	Incorporated Area
- Clearcreek	township
- Hocking	township
- Lancaster (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Liberty	township
- Lithopolis	village	Incorporated Area
- Millersport	village	Incorporated Area
- Pickerington	city	Incorporated Area
- Pleasant	township
- Pleasantville	village	Incorporated Area
- Richland	township
- Rush Creek	township
- Rushville	village	Incorporated Area
- Stoutsville	village	Incorporated Area
- Sugar Grove	village	Incorporated Area
- Thurston	village	Incorporated Area
- Violet	township
- Walnut	township
- West Rushville	village	Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resource Guide

Counties: US Map

The history of our nation can be seen as a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names we've given our counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of our country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."

Penn Foster High School

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